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Silly Question

This is probably a really silly question, but what would happen if you separated two supers with brood in them with an empty super (in a strong colony)? Would the brood in the upper super die? Or would the bees split and cover bother groups of brood? And would the bees fill out the empty super in between? Thanks for any advice.

Re: Silly Question

It depends on how cold the weather gets and how many bees the hive has. They will attempt to keep them both warm. They may or may not succeed, but in warm weather they probably will. They may raise a queen in the queenless nest.

Re: Silly Question

If its packed with bees and the lows are at least in the high 70s, they usually just draw the box in the center quite quickly and the queen tries to get lay in the new box to eliminate the gap... after the top brood emerges, they back usually back fill those cells with nectar... it can be trying on a colony to split the chamber like that in an even manner... its not so bad in cases where the queen has laid a little of the honey super as a third chamber...

Re: Silly Question

What's the problem? Do you have brood in a honey super? If that's the case, make sure the queen isn't in thatr box and go ahead and put the brood box above a box of honey. If you still have some nectar coming in, when that brood emerges, that space will likely get filled w/ honey.

Re: Silly Question

No problem, just a question. I am not harvesting this year. It is my first year and I had a deep and a medium on a weak colony and with the latest nectar flow they went nuts! Tons of bees! I had a deep with me when I was inspecting and thought that instead of putting deep-medium-deep, I would do deep-deep-medium. I just went ahead and did deep-medium-deep instead of splitting the brood. I am sure this may present a whole new set of issues, but I have learned that there is always something to think about with beekeeping - no dull moments really. I would rather not kill this colony. They are very gentle and I am impressed by their progress in the last few weeks. The queen's laying pattern has even improved! Thanks for all the info!